This is taken from The Guardian:

Birt's secret 'blue skies' advice to Blair revealed

by Rob Evans
Saturday July 2, 2005

The extraordinary range of the "blue-skies thinking" of the prime minister's most controversial adviser, Lord Birt, was revealed last night when Downing Street published previously secret reports written by him.

The reports show that Lord Birt, the prime minister's strategy adviser, has been looking at at least six areas of government policy - health, crime, drugs, education, transport and London.

Until last night, Tony Blair had blocked attempts by MPs to find out what his adviser has been telling him in private.

Lord Birt, former BBC director-general, has been a controversial figure in Whitehall, with ministers complaining that he has been trampling on their patches; John Prescott, the deputy prime minister, famously referred to him as "John bloody Birt".

The reports - published after freedom of information requests from the Guardian and others - show his advice has covered the territories of at least four cabinet members.

There were limits to the government's openness last night - much of the advice given by Lord Birt to Mr Blair has been blanked out of the reports.

In his report on drugs in 2003, Lord Birt found that "all drugs have an adverse impact - but heroin and crack are by far the most addictive". He told Mr Blair that drug use causes £24bn of harm to British society a year.

A summary of his report on education in 2001 concluded that "our educational performance has improved significantly over recent years ... this strong performance is a powerful endorsement for the current education strategy ... however, there are still significant performance challenges to meet".

On health, he advised in 2002 that "while Britain's health outcomes will continue to improve, healthcare demands will continue to increase, with only limited (though still useful) potential to mitigate that increase by focusing instead on public health initiatives".

Lord Birt said: "Britain's key problem is a shortage of medical system capacity, which drives poorer medical outcomes but also, crucially, waiting times, the most important drivers of patient dissatisfaction".

A summary of his report on transport in 2001 says: "The British travel much the same as other Europeans, yet our road and rail network is the least developed of any major country - the result of decades of below-average investment."

Norman Baker, a Liberal Democrat MP who has asked many parliamentary questions about Lord Birt, said: "It is quite clear that Lord Birt has been interfering in many government departments, despite the fact that he is supremely unqualified to do so. Why Mr Blair feels the need for a Svengali-figure like him, heaven knows."

No 10 also released correspondence between the prime minister's office and Lord Birt when the peer was taken on in 2001. Lord Birt was told: "I know that you are aware that it is crucially important to identify any conflicts of interests between his work and his financial interests."

Lord Birt has been criticised because he is also on the payroll of McKinseys, the management consultants.

Last night Chris Grayling, Tory shadow leader of the Commons, said it was "untenable" for him to hold both posts.